Story code: ST-001806
Part 3: The Live Feed
“Eight,” Hector said. The word hung in the humid air, heavier than the gasoline fumes. “Seven.”
Mateo looked at the rusted tire iron aimed directly at his chest, then past Hector to the two younger men. Their pistols were perfectly steady. If they fired, the muzzle flashes would ignite the oily rags piled in the corner. The shop would go up in minutes. Elena was locked in a closet with no secondary exit.
“Wait,” Mateo said. His voice cracked, dry as sandpaper. He slowly reached into the deep front pocket of his canvas coveralls. The two gunmen flinched, raising their weapons higher. Mateo kept his movements exaggerated, pulling out a heavy ring of brass keys, exposing his earlier lie about the register. “I have it. Just put the iron down.”
Hector did not lower the weapon, but he took one step back, yielding the narrow space.
Mateo walked to the heavy steel office door. His hands shook violently as he fumbled with the keys. He slid the brass into the deadbolt and turned it. The heavy lock disengaged with a solid thunk. He gripped the handle and pushed the door open.
The sharp, metallic smell of fresh blood hit Mateo instantly, overpowering the stale coffee and ozone inside the cramped office. A teenager, no older than seventeen, sat slumped against the gray metal filing cabinet. His white t-shirt was soaked black-red across the right shoulder. He was panting, his chin resting on his chest, his eyes half-open and glassy.
Mateo braced himself. He fully expected Hector to walk in, point a pistol at the boy’s head, and finish the execution.
Instead, Hector pushed past Mateo, cursing under his breath. He knelt beside the boy, not with a gun, but with frantic urgency. Hector slapped the boy’s uninjured cheek, hard.
“Hey. Look at me, Leo,” Hector barked. The boy blinked, groaning weakly. Hector stood up and rounded on Mateo. “Where is your kit? The heavy industrial one. Every working shop has one. Get it.”
Mateo stared at him, his mind struggling to process the command. “You… you aren’t going to kill him?”
“If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have chased the drive-by car off my block!” Hector spat, grabbing Mateo by the collar of his coveralls and shoving him toward the open garage bay. “He took a stray from a rival crew. Get the kit! You’re going to dig that slug out right now.”
Mateo stumbled toward his primary workstation. He yanked open the bottom drawer of his rolling tool chest, pulling out a white plastic first-aid box, a half-empty bottle of industrial rubbing alcohol, and a pair of needle-nose pliers he normally used for extracting cotter pins.
He hurried back into the office. The two armed men were standing guard by the roll-up doors, keeping careful watch on the quiet street. Hector was standing over the boy, pacing like a caged animal in the tight space.
Mateo dropped to his knees on the bloody linoleum. He ripped the boy’s ruined collar wider, exposing the jagged, purple entry wound just below the collarbone. There was no exit wound on the boy’s back. The bullet was still securely lodged in the muscle.
“Hold his good arm,” Mateo told Hector. He uncapped the rubbing alcohol and poured it directly over the raw hole.
Leo screamed, a raw, piercing shriek that vibrated off the office walls. He thrashed, kicking his sneakers frantically against the underside of the wooden desk. Hector pinned the boy’s left arm to the floor with a heavy boot and gripped his head with both hands, holding him relatively still.
“Do it,” Hector hissed. “Quick.”
Mateo sterilized the tips of the needle-nose pliers with the remaining alcohol. He took a deep breath, blocking out the boy’s wet, sobbing gasps, and inserted the cold steel into the wound. The boy convulsed. Mateo’s fingers slipped on the rubber grips as blood welled up, thick and warm, coating the pliers. He dug deeper, feeling the tips scrape against a hard, metallic mass. Torn muscle tissue gave way with sickening resistance.
Mateo clamped the pliers shut. He pulled back, twisting his wrist slightly. A distorted, flattened piece of lead popped out of the flesh, falling from the pliers and clattering loudly into an empty metal hubcap Mateo had kicked nearby.
Mateo grabbed a thick handful of blue shop towels and pressed them hard against the weeping wound. “It’s out,” Mateo breathed, his own chest heaving. “But he needs real stitches. He needs a hospital.”
“No hospitals,” Hector said, letting go of the boy and wiping sweat from his own forehead. “A hospital means police. Police mean questions. We handle this quietly. The East side crew who did this, they don’t even know they hit him. If they find out they clipped my little brother, they’ll think we’re weak. It starts a war.”
Mateo kept his steady pressure on the boy’s shoulder, looking down at the floor.
Leo was no longer sobbing. His breathing had leveled out into a ragged hiss. He reached into his blood-soaked jeans with his good hand and pulled out a smartphone.
Before Mateo could tell him to drop it, the boy swiped the screen. The harsh white glare illuminated his pale, sweaty face. He held the phone up, angling the camera to capture both his own face and the blood-soaked towels Mateo was holding against his chest.
A small red icon flashed in the top corner of the screen. The word LIVE hovered next to an eye symbol. The numbers next to the eye began ticking upward with terrifying speed. Ten. Fifty. Two hundred.
“Yeah, you see this?” Leo rasped into the microphone, his voice suddenly adopting a forced, arrogant drawl. “East side kings tried to spin the block. Tried to put me in the dirt. But I’m still here. Look at this blood, man. They missed the head. We spinning back tonight. We burning their whole block down on live. Watch me.”
Little digital hearts and skull emojis floated in a steady, bubbling stream up the right side of the glowing screen.
Mateo froze, the bloody shop towels slipping under his palms.
Hector turned around. He saw the glowing screen. He saw the chat scrolling furiously across the glass.
The older man’s face went completely slack. The tough, commanding facade evaporated, replaced instantly by sheer, unadulterated panic.
“What are you doing?” Hector whispered, his voice trembling.
“Showing them we don’t back down,” Leo sneered directly into the lens. “Southside taking over-”
Hector lunged. He did not reach for the phone. He reached directly for Leo’s throat. His thick hands clamped around the boy’s windpipe, lifting him up and slamming his head back against the metal filing cabinet with a sickening thud. The phone wobbled in Leo’s hand but stayed pointed right at them.
“I spent three months!” Hector roared, spit flying from his lips as he squeezed. “Three months brokering a truce with the East side so the feds would leave our block alone! And you put a hit on yourself on the timeline?”
Leo gagged, his eyes bulging in terror, his fingers desperately clawing at his brother’s thick wrists. But his grip on the phone did not falter.
“You stupid, arrogant little punk!” Hector screamed, shaking the boy so hard the filing cabinet rattled against the drywall. “You just started a war for views!”
Mateo backed away on his hands and knees, his boots slipping in the smeared blood. The stream of colorful skull emojis continued to float cheerfully up the glass screen, illuminating Hector’s murderous grip and the boy’s rapidly turning face.